This year's DSO theme was Roaring Twenties. The task for the obedience portion of beginner was to get to a speak easy. Now, as a good citizen, you are a card carrying member of prohibition - quite literally.

You enter the field with your dog on leash, proudly displaying your prohibition "membership card" on a lovely string of beads. But, you have decided that you want to visit a speak easy and have a few drinks, so you meet up with a friendly decoy who offers to take you there. You are scored on your dog's behavior during the initial meeting with the decoy.

Some dogs had a little too much interest!

The decoy also collects your beads, because no prohibition member should have their membership card with them at a speak easy!

But, the way is secret so the decoy hands you a black hood to wear and you start heeling to your first obstical.

All of your communication with your dog was verbal, and though we were not marked off for "checking in" with our dog through touch. Multiple commands were penalized as was the dog forging, lagging or other "bad" behaviors. You could also converse with the decoy and have them help you keep track of the dog's whereabouts.

So as you are heeling to your first obstical, you hear a voice over the speakers warning you of bad weather coming in. You are then told to stop and sit your dog. Then you hear loud crashes of thunder over the speakers and rain comes pouring down on both of you. You feel for your dog to see if they are still where you put them... and if they aren't, you try to get them back where they belong by touch, and shield them from the rain as necessary.

When the rain lets up, the decoy comes back to get you to continue on your journey.

Without the ability to see your dog, they tend to get away with things they would never be able to do normally. Like taste test decoys...

You heel along the path, and encounter a "creek" that you need to cross with your dog.

After the creek, thunder rolls in again, but this time your dog needs to be in a down through the storm.

After the next rain passes, you can remove your hood, you're almost there!!

You heel towards a rowdy table of decoys enjoying the "speak easy." You stand at the table and converse with them,

and suddenly sirens wail over the speakers and more decoys come out of the tent yelling! It's a raid!!!

OH NO! You don't want to get arrested!! Where is your Prohibition Membership Card? Your friendly decoy guide dropped it! You have to hustle and find it!

Once you have it, the obedience portion is over.

For the Obedience Only dogs, there is a Meet and Greet with the judges and they exit the field.

Some dogs took a little dip on the way out

The Protection dogs then continue to the protection scenarios.

Our first scenario is the car. You are sitting in your lovely Chevy truck minding your own business when a friendly stranger approaches. Your dog is supposed to remain neutral while they engage you in conversation.

When the stranger becomes aggressive, the dog protects the car and handler.

After the car is civil agitation on the tie out.

The final phase of protection is the handler protection bite. You put your dog in a position of control - a sit or a down - and go to the end of the leash. A decoy approaches and engages you in conversation.

The dog remains passive until the decoy becomes threatening.

All done!

And sometimes, just to make things more interesting... Plain old weird things happen.

Just after I put my hood on for my trial with Riggs a gust of wind took the announcer's tent into the goat pen. Yes, there is a goat pen with 8 goats right next to the trial field. Quite frequently, there were one or two sitting in the shade on the other side of the fence from where we did the down.

I had no idea what was going on, though I knew there was something happening.

Just added things for Riggs to pay attention to instead of paying attention to me!

In other years, goats have gotten on the field, other dogs have come out on the field...

Michelle

Inside me is a thin woman trying to get out. I usually shut the bitch up with a martini.

And for the record...it was so much harder than you'd think to wear those hoods and heel your dogs. I asked the judges about clicking and treating in the beginning...but with the hood on, I had no chance to do that! I couldn't see anything! With Fig, I couldn't even feel for where he was...I accidentally kicked him once!

"I don't have any idea if my dogs respect me or not, but they're greedy and I have their stuff." -- Patty Ruzzo

"Dogs don't want to control people. They want to control their own lives." --John Bradshaw

madremissy wrote:There goes my hopes of Kinzyl doing this. She would freak out if I had to put on hood on. And the decoy wearing a hat...... that would really do he in.

I love the pictures and the scenerio. Everyone looked great.

Well, how do you know that? Have you ever put a hood on and done obedience?

Every year is very different, you never know if the hoods will show up again. And you could opt out of the hoods for a point penalty.

And if she freaked out at the decoy wearing a hat, then the trial would stop and it would be worked through. Just like the trial was stopped when different dogs had problems with other things. When dogs wouldn't hold their stay, a second handler came on the field to help. If a dog wouldn't work on a suit, a second decoy came out with a sleeve. If a dog needed a prey bite instead of aggression work, the work style was changed.

Go check out the old DSO write ups, you'll see what I'm talking about. (Maybe I should sticky them )

Michelle

Inside me is a thin woman trying to get out. I usually shut the bitch up with a martini.

This dog's handler has wrist problems so Cheryl opted to teach the dog to agitate upwards instead of pulling away from the handler. Cheryl has also trained proection dogs for clients in wheelchairs. Instead of pulling they do a perimeter guard around the handler.

Demo Dick

"My first priority will be to reinstate the assault weapons ban PERMANENTLY as soon as I take office...I intend to work with Congress on a national no carry law, 1 gun a month purchase limits, and bans on all semi-automatic guns."-Barack Obama"When in doubt, whip it out."-Nuge

madremissy wrote:There goes my hopes of Kinzyl doing this. She would freak out if I had to put on hood on. And the decoy wearing a hat...... that would really do he in.

I love the pictures and the scenerio. Everyone looked great.

Well, how do you know that? Have you ever put a hood on and done obedience?

Every year is very different, you never know if the hoods will show up again. And you could opt out of the hoods for a point penalty.

And if she freaked out at the decoy wearing a hat, then the trial would stop and it would be worked through. Just like the trial was stopped when different dogs had problems with other things. When dogs wouldn't hold their stay, a second handler came on the field to help. If a dog wouldn't work on a suit, a second decoy came out with a sleeve. If a dog needed a prey bite instead of aggression work, the work style was changed.

Go check out the old DSO write ups, you'll see what I'm talking about. (Maybe I should sticky them )

Well since you put it that way MAYBE she would do alright. Thanks for the explanation. It really sounds like a lot of fun. Does it count if she doesn't bite anything and just barks at the decoy? I don't know if she would bite a sleeve or something but she can bark. Ok, Sarah start planning our trip for next year.

madremissy wrote:Well since you put it that way MAYBE she would do alright. Thanks for the explanation. It really sounds like a lot of fun. Does it count if she doesn't bite anything and just barks at the decoy? I don't know if she would bite a sleeve or something but she can bark. Ok, Sarah start planning our trip for next year.

Liz, Erin, Deb and I competed in Obedience Only. If you read the post , you'll see that we exited the field before the protection phase of the competition. They have had an Obedience Only competition for the past three years.

After the first two years that we went, I begged and pleaded for them to add that category for those of us who have dogs that don't do bitework. It turned out that they had actually discussed the idea in the past, but had not done it. Evidently, I was annoying... um... convincing ... enough to have them try it. The first year they only did Beginner, then last year they added Intermediate.

Last year, I pulled Riggs out of Protection and instead of not trialing at all, I put him in Obedience. Deb's dog Conan is also an ex-protection dog who trialed in Obedience. Even though one Protection competitor had a "few things to say" about the Obedience category and how the dogs didn't know what the decoys were anyway, she didn't know what she was yapping about. Riggs knows perfectly well what a decoy is, he's just not allowed to bite them anymore.

(Well, actually, Deb also competed with one of her dogs in protection, but that's not the point. )

Michelle

Inside me is a thin woman trying to get out. I usually shut the bitch up with a martini.